David J Bauman (00:01)
The Sin of Being Okay, that's the title of the most recent book of poetry by Don Lees, published by Kinsman Quarterly. And we'll talk to Don about two of the poems from that collection, and one she has chosen to share by Ada Limon. Dawn is also the author of A Person Worth Knowing from Foothills Publishing, Take Something When You Go, Winter Goose Publishing, and I Know When to Keep Quiet, published by Finishing Line Press. Her poetry has appeared in Literary Mama.

The Pedestal Magazine, Swim, New York Quarterly, The Patterson Literary Review, Wild Roof Journal, and elsewhere. I'm David J. Bauman, your host, and you're listening to another conversation in Three Poems.

David J Bauman (00:45)
I'm talking with Dawn Leas. Now, Dawn I was talking to you earlier about season one, the episode with my own son that I collaborate with, i if I can start with a commercial, you should listen to that because I asked him, Hey, I try to do

these episodes with people that I know and new people that I haven't met before that I'm just talking to for the first time. And I said, So how do you and I know each other? And he looked at me and said, What? And we both laughed. But how do you and I know each other, Don? We've known each other a long time and we're having a hard time figuring out exactly where.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (01:18)
We are. Like what year

exactly, what year? It was it was at a poetry event. I know it

David J Bauman (01:24)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (01:25)
was. Like whether it was at Diva Theater in Scranton or if

David J Bauman (01:28)
Mm-hmm.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (01:29)
it was at the library in in Wilkes-Barre, who who who knows, right? Yeah.

David J Bauman (01:32)
That could be too, yeah, because for a short

time I was an editor for the literary magazine at the

Dawn Leas (she/her) (01:37)
Yes.

David J Bauman (01:38)
at the Osterhout Library in

Dawn Leas (she/her) (01:39)
Yes.

David J Bauman (01:39)
Wikes-Barre, and we did have we had some readings there. I think one of the cool things is the importance of local or regional poetry community

Dawn Leas (she/her) (01:48)
Absolutely.

David J Bauman (01:49)
Heck, even when I've been in New York City and got the chance to meet poets that I I didn't expect to meet reading at the KGB bar or, you

Dawn Leas (she/her) (01:54)
Right. Exactly.

David J Bauman (01:56)
know, Cornelius Street Cafe. It's it's really good to get out and and be part of that community. And you're running a series right now still too, right?

Dawn Leas (she/her) (02:05)
Yes.

it's called word to word. And I co-host it with Jennifer Yankonsky Judge and Mishelle Anthony. it's a quarterly series and we invite three poets to read together. You were there. You so you read

David J Bauman (02:17)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (02:18)
without any chatter in between poems and you kind of order the poems. so it becomes a conversation among the poems of the three poets.

Some oftentimes who don't know one another. and it's just

David J Bauman (02:28)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (02:28)
really interesting to see how common themes kind of just pop up organically without being planned oftentimes. And so it's it's a really neat way to to see people present their poetry. And then we always have an open mic, because I we all believe that open mics are a really important part of any literary community and to bring new voices in and even

people who've been reading a long time just to get th that varied voices, right? So three

David J Bauman (02:55)
Agreed, yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (02:56)
featured poets and then a short open mic after it as well.

David J Bauman (02:59)
I kind of think your project was one of the many projects that must have filtered in through my subconscious. Because one of the things that I love about this is I've had people say, well, which poem should I read to go with this one? And I said, you know what? You don't have to search for the connections. We'll find them when we talk.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (03:16)
Exactly, exactly.

David J Bauman (03:16)
And that's some

of the fun and what makes the talk, I think, sort of authentic. In a way, it may sound like I'm a little unprepared, believe me. I have lots of notes.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (03:25)
Well, I believe you. I know you.

David J Bauman (03:28)
Well with that in mind,

Dawn Leas (she/her) (03:27)
Mm hmm.

David J Bauman (03:30)
the way this goes is we we read three poems total and two of them are by our guest poet you, and I get the honor of reading the first one.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (03:37)
Okay.

David J Bauman (03:37)
and so I'd like to start with that one is from your your new book that you've sort of been on tour with, The Sin of Being Okay. Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (03:44)
Little bit. Yes.

David J Bauman (03:46)
This is called Trowl Screen Camera and how do you feel if I read it first and then we'll talk about it?

Dawn Leas (she/her) (03:53)
I feel great about that.

David J Bauman (03:55)
Okay. All right, Trowel Screen Camera I never wanted to be an archaeologist until I met you. Wide brim hat and hiking boots, reach of the midsummer sun long over the Rockies, dust sweet.

of dry season and sweat stained back of a linen shirt.

Sleeves rolled up to my elbows, I crisscross time zones, searching your history. Traipsing across topographies, I trowel Colorado sandstone, sift soil through screens. I hike the mountains of North Carolina with a backpack full of supplies. Toggled metal bottle bounces off my hip with each step. Listening to rhymes and reasons on repeat.

I collect

artifacts, your elementary school pictures, home movie footage of you learning to skip, the last page of a high school essay about Bowie. Newspaper feature on your college band. A photo of you with long hair, lips just a millimeter from mic First page of your first screenplay. I dig and dig to learn who you are. Yes, I am writing.

Another poem to teach you who I am.

I just really love this, Dawn

Dawn Leas (she/her) (05:22)
Thank you.

David J Bauman (05:23)
I love first of all I I just have to point out the the sort of assonance and consonance the kind of music between things like sleeves, elbow crisscross time zones. as well as the internal rhyme and I love that in a poem.

There's also that something about the form when you look at it. it's almost like a block of text, But what's interesting, the sentences are very short and almost feel like they almost feel like they could be semicolons or commas sometimes,

which which kind of gives you a certain amount of maneuverability on how you want to read it, I think.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (06:00)
yeah, I I started this poem like I s I started this poem just writing a rough draft in prose form and then I pulled the poem out. It's something that I learned from my dear poet friend Jen Yonkowski Judge. so I'm like this is a prose poem. This is gonna be a prose poem.

And then in iterations and revision, I'm like, okay, let me pull this apart and put it into some stanzas. And I did that and I didn't like it. I didn't like the way it sounded when I you know, when I read it. So when I

David J Bauman (06:29)
I've been there.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (06:29)
was getting it ready to send in with with the book, I'm like, I am I am put it this is a prose poem and I'm just going to put it in in here and that's what it's going to be. So excited. And that's the first time I ever heard somebody read it.

Like other than me reading it. And I it's not one that I often read, like when I'm doing readings. So it was a treat to to hear that. So thank you so much. Yeah.

David J Bauman (06:50)
Delightful. It is

it is fun just to I've said before, like wrap your mouth around somebody else's poem.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (06:56)
Right. Yes.

David J Bauman (06:57)
Because I think one of the best ways to write one, well, as far as when you're at that like editing revision stage, is reading

Dawn Leas (she/her) (07:04)
Yes.

David J Bauman (07:04)
it out loud because oftentimes what I think I've put on the paper maybe isn't all there. You know, maybe a lot

Dawn Leas (she/her) (07:09)
Right.

David J Bauman (07:09)
of it's in my head. And so if I could give myself a little distance and then read it. And plus, I don't know, I've just had such a kick.

out of the few times that I've gotten to hear somebody else read one of my works and you're

Dawn Leas (she/her) (07:19)
Right.

David J Bauman (07:19)
like, my God, I'm pretty good, aren't I?

Dawn Leas (she/her) (07:22)
Yeah.

David J Bauman (07:22)
What that one was. That poem was good anyway. Yes. Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (07:25)
Or that line needs to be edited, you know. I I I like I mean, reading

out loud is just such a great revision technique in in my opinion. So and then

David J Bauman (07:34)
Absolutely.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (07:35)
ac actually getting to hear somebody else read it is it's it's a different you I think you hear different things, different interpretations.

David J Bauman (07:41)
it's always yeah, it's always fun when you hear when you read something by a poet, like I've read something by William Stafford, and then just earlier today played, this is it's it's a poem with his voice in it.

I think it's his poem Security, so I played it to listen to him read it. And it was close to what I read because I'd read a lot of William Stafford. He was a big in but but he definitely had some different I'm like, I like how he

I can see why he put the accent on that word, or I can see why he paused at the line this way. It's not quite how I did it. but it's interesting. There are also situations where I hope I haven't said this already on the podcast, but I heard William Carlos Williams there's I I have a big book of old poetry recordings like on CD that

Dawn Leas (she/her) (08:27)
Mm-hmm.

David J Bauman (08:28)
goes with the book. I think it's called Poetry Speaks, and I played William Carlos Williams.

Reading of the Red Wheelbarrow, and I wanted to scream and cry because it just he went, so much depends upon a red wheelbarrow laced with rain rotter beside the white chickens. And I'm like, no, no. It's such a you know, it's it's spatial. Like, pause a little bit. Like, let me see the wheelbarrow. well. He didn't.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (08:53)
And he didn't. Mm-hmm.

David J Bauman (08:55)
who am I to say? But he's not here to argue with me, so I'm gonna say.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (08:58)
And

David J Bauman (08:59)
He should have read that a little differently.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (09:00)
I like that, yeah.

David J Bauman (09:04)
So yeah, we were talking about I was saying about where this poem came from.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (09:08)
Mm-hmm.

David J Bauman (09:09)
You and I talked at first when I was

Dawn Leas (she/her) (09:10)
Yes.

David J Bauman (09:11)
first reading it, the for the very first reading, I realized that that I got into it as I went and kind of missed some of the opening lines, but I thought, okay, this is about one of her sons that's much older now. And then when I read the opening lines again, because it says until I met you.

And I thought, well maybe she's talking about meeting him now as an adult.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (09:34)
Right.

David J Bauman (09:36)
And this is actually about a romantic interest, right? Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (09:39)
It is. It

is. And so when you email me about that, I just that's what I love about poetry, right? Like there's the intent of the poet, there's the meaning of the poet, and then it's how a reader or listener receives the poem. And so there's intersections, but how

David J Bauman (09:56)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (09:57)
it can be vastly different and and the interpretation. So like, you know, you can ask five people to read a poem and they'll give you five oftentimes different interpretations. So

David J Bauman (10:06)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (10:07)
I got a kick out of that when when you emailed me and said, I wanna read

David J Bauman (10:10)
I did too.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (10:11)
this because you know, we have this shared experience of having adult children. Yeah, yeah. So and they're

David J Bauman (10:13)
I have sons and you do too and

Dawn Leas (she/her) (10:17)
adults now and like how you know, that whole process of them like growing up and then you're like, How c how are they their own adults at the moment, right? So I just got a kick out of that. But it it is about you know, my my current relationship, my the love in my life and

and trying to get to know him by these little bits and pieces that I'm learning of him, like of his past, you know, these things that

David J Bauman (10:40)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (10:41)
have happened where he where he spent time as a a child and young adult that I didn't know him as. So

and like and then in the process trying to somehow show him who like little bits of of who I am too.

David J Bauman (10:54)
Yeah, and you actually do, you make that actually much more clear than than what I got on first readings, because when

Dawn Leas (she/her) (10:59)
Yeah.

David J Bauman (11:00)
you're like newspaper feature of your college band, well, you know, if if you were a mom, you would have already had that on your fridge and you weren't reading it for the first time. So

Dawn Leas (she/her) (11:05)
Yeah, I would, yes, yes.

David J Bauman (11:09)
so some of that was was my my my lack as a reader. And but

Dawn Leas (she/her) (11:14)
Uh-huh.

David J Bauman (11:14)
I do think there is a there's a difference between what did I say was be when we were talking before, useful ambiguity.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (11:20)
Yes.

David J Bauman (11:20)
And actually, like, I I I think there does come a place when someone does a poem and someone says it's it's basically about how the sky is blue, and someone says, Yes, this is about the dark redness of the soul. Like, okay, wait. To an

Dawn Leas (she/her) (11:35)
Right.

David J Bauman (11:37)
extent, somewhere, language has meaning, right? And if if it's

Dawn Leas (she/her) (11:40)
Right.

David J Bauman (11:40)
not if it's not just a a language poem puzzle, then maybe I wasn't paying attention as a reader.

And and it's a great love poem. When you when

Dawn Leas (she/her) (11:51)
Yeah.

David J Bauman (11:51)
you look at

digging and digging in that way. I mean the literal

Dawn Leas (she/her) (11:54)
Yes.

David J Bauman (11:54)
the literalness it seems at first of of actually being an archaeologist

Dawn Leas (she/her) (11:59)
Right.

David J Bauman (11:59)
and the hiking and the heat and the the bottle bouncing off your hip with each step. But then as it goes into digging through somebody's past. And I love that. I've I've done that I think with

with my hubby Brian, where I've seen pictures of his mother, you know, and I in the kitchen. She shown me pictures from his high school prom or, you know, this or that. And

Dawn Leas (she/her) (12:15)
Exactly. Yeah.

David J Bauman (12:17)
and you get to feel like you get to know somebody in a deeper way because you're seeing a part of their life you weren't personally there for.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (12:23)
involved

in. Exactly. And and it's been that picture of him with long hair, like in this band, it's just like

David J Bauman (12:30)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (12:30)
I know I would have been this high school girl th like with this massive crush, but being like, he's too cool for me, right? Like he's like

David J Bauman (12:36)
Ha ha ha.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (12:37)
he's not gonna want, you know, to to date somebody like a n a nerd, bookish nerd like like me. So so yeah, and being able to see the artifacts of somebody's past life, right? And

it's adding to the puzzle that you have to put together when you are in a relationship with somebody of their life, you know, prior from the the time that you met and, you know, started a relationship with them. So so it is one of the love poems in the book. Yeah.

David J Bauman (13:02)
Yeah, and it's especially

it's I think it's especially poignant when this is a maybe not somebody's first relationship or not even first long term relationship, you know, because

Dawn Leas (she/her) (13:09)
Right. Right. Yeah.

David J Bauman (13:12)
in my instance, you know, I came out late in life and so I have the f you know, the ex wife and children

Dawn Leas (she/her) (13:18)
Mm-hmm.

David J Bauman (13:19)
and my former wife and I are good friends and and that's good. Not everybody,

Dawn Leas (she/her) (13:23)
Mm-hmm.

David J Bauman (13:24)
you know, is so lucky.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (13:25)
Right.

David J Bauman (13:26)
but in other ways, you know, there were there were things like that kind of prom picture with somebody I didn't have, you

know.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (13:31)
Right.

David J Bauman (13:32)
I did have prom pictures, of course, but it felt like in in some very real ways I was going through adolescence again, falling in love again, and those kind of things.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (13:39)
Hmm. Yeah.

David J Bauman (13:42)
And I'm sure that's identifiable for you and for anybody reading a poem like that.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (13:46)
Exactly. Yeah, I agree.

David J Bauman (13:48)
So you chose a poem to read of your own

Dawn Leas (she/her) (13:50)
Mm. Mm-hmm. I did.

David J Bauman (13:53)
there are things I want to ask about it

Dawn Leas (she/her) (13:54)
Okay.

David J Bauman (13:55)
I don't know if you want to tell us anything about it, particularly we're talking form,

Dawn Leas (she/her) (13:59)
Right.

David J Bauman (13:59)
or if you wanna read it first and then we'll talk about the form. I'm okay either way.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (14:03)
well let's read it and then we can talk about the form. How about that? Okay.

David J Bauman (14:05)
Ye I love it. Yes.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (14:07)
And it is the title poem from the book. I did in the title of the book I added the, like the sin of being okay as the title of the book. The poem

itself is just called Sin of Being Okay. And it is a cadrillore. We can talk about that later. So

David J Bauman (14:19)
Gotcha. Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (14:22)
yeah, okay. one.

You drew triangles, circles, squiggly lines and margins above math problems with purple pen, under reading notes. Teachers expected answers you couldn't find outside the windows, past the flat playground, horse farms and cow pastures. Just the tip of your imagination. 2. He dreams and tie-dye, each bright yellow flowing into pink, green, blue, orange.

He sees dream you before real you, teased hair, rugby shirt three sizes too big. Real you rarely smiles, worry lines setting into forehead, but his voice reaches you, unfolds your mouth. Three. How you describe the color of water? Blueberry, shallow as your grandmother's eyes, violet like your cousin's middle name,

Blue as a marble skittering across Tarrazzo in midsummer sun. Muted a trumpet in a city club. Your favorite pair of Levi's decades old. A lover's voice saying sorry for the first time. Four. Define Sunuki. Sin of being okay. Collage of photos with faded edges. Lying naked in the woods. Watercolored sky.

Gold star for breaking the rules, crying during sex, a dream that can't be let go, a period with hot flashes, underwater sounds of an abandoned ocean. 5. From an early age you learn to be small, could fit in a jack in the box at the slightest raised voice, even brief eye contact, embarrassing hair out of place, each person cranked, one click.

Two clicks three. The tighter the turn, the tinier you became until the pop splintered your life.

David J Bauman (16:26)
Yeah.

So I will put links, but if you happen to get your hands on the book and see the form, this is in five numbered stanzas, which is part of the form. and you say cadralar is that how you say it? Okay.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (16:42)
I think it's cadrillor. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think that's how you you say it.

David J Bauman (16:48)
but there's certain rules and I I looked it up a little bit,

Dawn Leas (she/her) (16:51)
Yes.

David J Bauman (16:52)
but like ten line stanzas until the last one, right?

Dawn Leas (she/her) (16:56)
So each stanza has to have the same number of lines. And each stanza can have up to ten lines.

David J Bauman (17:00)
Gotcha. okay. Gotcha.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (17:04)
Each stanza has the lines have to be approximately the same length. And there has to be five stanzas. And each stanza, like it's a very image-driven poem form. You each one is almost like a tiny snippet that could be a standalone poem.

On its own and then

David J Bauman (17:26)
Right. Yeah, and it there's not

some unifying narrative that follows from one stanza to another. Yeah. Okay.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (17:31)
Right. But

the fifth stanza is what they call, I think, the golden thread that ties all of the other stanzas together. And it was created by two poets, Chris Cadra and Lori my gosh, I'm blanking on her name. I apologize. They run

David J Bauman (17:49)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (17:50)
a journal called Gleam, which they only publish Cadralore in. So they created this like during the pandemic, I think, and

Created this journal and they and I found out about it because I am the editorial advisor for River and South Review. And somebody submitted a cadrillore and we accepted it and we we printed it in one of our issues and I'm like, what is a cadrillore? I've never heard of this.

David J Bauman (18:12)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (18:13)
And so it's fun. I've written a couple of other ones. One about my younger son, for his I gave it to him for his birthday, and they actually published that one in Gleam. so and this one was in in an

anthology. so I just I was really just kinda I like a lot of descriptive detail in poems. I love images.

David J Bauman (18:30)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (18:31)
Like I feel like if you can really paint a picture e not just with visual but with sound and scent and s you know, taste, you really kinda pull readers in. So I think that's what attracts me to this this form of poem.

David J Bauman (18:44)
I think one of the things when I'm writing I love I love made up forms too. I mean I I may not always be brave enough to try it. I gotta be honest,

Dawn Leas (she/her) (18:51)
Yeah. Right.

David J Bauman (18:52)
I've I've I've done villainelles. I have yet to do a sestina That one still scares me. But

Dawn Leas (she/her) (18:57)
Right.

David J Bauman (18:58)
I I keep telling myself I'm going to do one. But some of the the made up forms that you see, I think a little bit like a villainelle. There's something about the form, even with the sonnet that helps you to write the poem

Dawn Leas (she/her) (19:09)
Right.

David J Bauman (19:10)
If you're if you've got an image that you think wants to become a poem and I'm following that

and I'm not sure what else to do,

Did you find that when you were writing this that that actually the form helped you discover what you were saying as you or what you were

Dawn Leas (she/her) (19:23)
Yeah.

David J Bauman (19:24)
going to say as you said it?

Dawn Leas (she/her) (19:25)
Yes. And it's interesting because I I think this came out of a retreat that I was teaching. And so when I lead workshops at retreats, I end up writing. Why not? Right. I don't

David J Bauman (19:34)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (19:34)
want to just sit there and not do anything. And so I had the fo the four stanzas. I got that down. And I had those four stanzas. I could not get the fifth stanza. I just

it just wasn't coming. I set it aside, I think, for a couple of months. And then, my friend and former Wilkes colleague, David Hicks, he runs a writing workshop on the first Thursday of the month in Scranton at Groove Brewery and I got that last stanza at that I went

David J Bauman (20:03)
Mm-hmm.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (20:04)
one night and I'm like, Yes, this is the stanza I need, like to tie these together.

I do think sometimes if you're trying to write in some sort of form, it gives you those parameters, right? Like especially if you have

David J Bauman (20:12)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (20:13)
like something big that you're trying to wrangle, using forms that are well known or making up your own, like making up your own rules to kind of work within a a tighter structure is definitely helpful. Yeah.

David J Bauman (20:25)
what did it start first with the the form, or did you have a few notes that you thought, I want to put this into that form?

Dawn Leas (she/her) (20:32)
No, it started with the form. 'Cause I was teaching the workshop and I'm

David J Bauman (20:35)
I love it.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (20:35)
like, okay, I have to I'm gonna start with the form and and then you know, I went stanza by stanza. I do so I think it started with like this word Snooky, I as I'm known to do, I rush through texts and I don't spell check and it auto corrected

I think I was trying to write the word something and it auto corrected to Sanuki and I'm like and I sent it and then I'm reading it, I'm like, what is Sunuki? And so I looked it up

David J Bauman (21:03)
He

Dawn Leas (she/her) (21:05)
and I'm like, this word doesn't exist. So let me w like, let me work on defining it. Like what what would it be? What would this word be if it were actually, you know, in in a dictionary? So that is really ki that stands it is a list of things that I'm like, well it could be this, it could be this, it could be, you know, it could be this. So

which has also led me to I I lead workshops where they write definition poems where they have to make up words and fine you know, kind of put letters

David J Bauman (21:31)
I love it.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (21:32)
together, make up words and then write the definition of the words in the in the poem. So it's been fun. A fun exercise to do.

David J Bauman (21:39)
And so when you see it,

that is. That does sound fun. And and when you look at that word, it looks like, you know, sin okay without the A, you know. And so did that

Dawn Leas (she/her) (21:46)
Yes. Okay. Exactly. So that's where the title came from.

David J Bauman (21:49)
That is that is great.

but underwater sounds of an abandoned ocean. I think I think of that gosh, when you think about all of the hundreds or thousands of years of history of of

Water or the ocean being symbolic of a woman's womb and when you talk about the abandoned ocean, and the whole underwater,

Dawn Leas (she/her) (22:05)
Right. Mm-hmm.

David J Bauman (22:08)
whether or not you're I guess whether or not you're a guy like me reading it and thinking of, the the hero's story and doing going to the underworld and coming back out. But

That you would end a stanza on underwater sounds of an abandoned ocean. I love that you were not tempted to try to sew it up. It's almost

Dawn Leas (she/her) (22:26)
Yeah, right.

David J Bauman (22:26)
like it's almost like you created these feelings of unease and tension, like a lover's

Dawn Leas (she/her) (22:32)
Mm-hmm.

David J Bauman (22:33)
voice saying, I'm sorry. There's a little bit of resolution, I guess, in that. reaches you,

Dawn Leas (she/her) (22:37)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

David J Bauman (22:38)
unfolds your mouth, just the tip of your imagination. I mean, some of it it flirts with.

like a catharsis maybe or but then it's not until the end that you start pulling it all together.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (22:50)
Right.

which is the way of the cadralore right? That that's what they want.

David J Bauman (22:53)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (22:53)
They want that like fifth stanza to to kinda be the golden thread.

David J Bauman (22:57)
such a fun I'm gonna have to try this at some point.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (22:59)
Okay.

David J Bauman (22:59)
I'll send it to you when I when I have one. What else

Dawn Leas (she/her) (23:00)
I I please do. I wanna read it.

David J Bauman (23:03)
do you what else did you wanna say about this? maybe as it relates to the book as a whole, because we want people to buy your book, The Sin of Being Okay.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (23:10)
Yeah,

so you know, this book is part of it is poems that I was I resisted. I resisted writing and I'm like,

David J Bauman (23:20)
Mm.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (23:20)
I don't wanna write about this. I was in a long term marriage, that that

David J Bauman (23:24)
Mm.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (23:25)
ended. we were married for twenty six years and so a lot of the poems are about this ending and this questioning of midlife and what does it mean and

has my life become a cliche and am I a cliche kind of exploration but also just finding slowly like who I really am and who I was and didn't know. So it's a lot about like my identity as a woman, my identity as a mother who now has older children. So like as my identity is shifting, right? Like I always had these labels that I put on myself of who I was

And then as those things were moving on or or falling away, then it's like what you know, what what is left and

David J Bauman (24:06)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (24:06)
how am I going to find my way? So the sin of being okay, it's like, okay, people think that you should really fall apart, which you know, that there were times of that, but also it's okay to be okay when things end,

Yeah, and the societal view of what it means for any kind of relationship to to end, right? we're taught not that that's not the way it's supposed to be. And, you know, we were all well I was, my generation, like fed this fairy tale of, you know, happily ever after and what does happily ever after truly mean to an individual and instead of going, you know, with the flow of what

people say that you have to do and kind of me going against that flow and and coming out on the other side.

David J Bauman (24:51)
that feeling like, I feel okay now. And then

You know, like, well you're not supposed to. You're doing, you know, you're you're living in

Dawn Leas (she/her) (24:58)
Right.

David J Bauman (24:58)
sin, you're doing a bad thing kind of thing. I just think it's a great title.

what else do you want to say about your book before we bring in another poem by someone else that you're gonna read for us?

Dawn Leas (she/her) (25:08)
Yeah.

I think, you know, the book is something that was difficult to write. I when you're writing poems, like I'm not I don't start out being like, this is going to come together into a collection, but so I'm writing these poems and writing these poems and then when I put them together, there was some anxiety over it. And you know, like there

David J Bauman (25:25)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (25:25)
there is fiction in the book, but there there's also real life in the book and and real people and

David J Bauman (25:30)
Mm.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (25:31)
so

It's this process of putting my feelings and story down on the page in the hope that by doing so and by being like that vulnerability of writing that it will connect with somebody else and hopefully help somebody else who can see themselves in a similar situation. So I think this book more than any of my other ones, I hope that's my hope for it, that it that it reaches somebody who needs it at just the right time of them.

you know, needing to hear a similar story and being like, I am not alone in this.

David J Bauman (26:03)
Yeah.

Yeah.

we always asked the visiting poet to read. I say we, and there's nobody else in this room except my dog sleeping behind. It's

Dawn Leas (she/her) (26:13)
That's a we He's he's participating.

David J Bauman (26:16)
Well, you know, and it's not sometimes this feels like I can't I can't even bring myself to say it's not a one-man operation because I bounce ideas off of of Brian, who's done the theme music that you that you're

Dawn Leas (she/her) (26:26)
Mm-hmm. Right.

David J Bauman (26:28)
hearing in this episode. and lots of ideas for for the name as well as the the the cover art for the podcast and everything. I've run that by multiple friends of mine and my friend Joel and the whole theme of

of the thing and plus all of these poets. I mean, this is I think going to be the 23rd episode total, I think. in second season, first season we had 14

Dawn Leas (she/her) (26:51)
Ow. Mm-hmm.

David J Bauman (26:53)
different poets, this season it's 12 or 13 and I already have next season laid out. So

Dawn Leas (she/her) (26:59)
That's great. Go, David.

David J Bauman (27:03)
so in some ways it feels like a one man machine, but

But really there's it's collectively because there's so many this this community has me so excited, just of people people's interest in this. And to hear,

Dawn Leas (she/her) (27:14)
Yeah. Wonderful.

David J Bauman (27:16)
okay, what what poems by somebody else

Dawn Leas (she/her) (27:20)
Mm-hmm.

David J Bauman (27:21)
turn you on, if I can use those phrase.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (27:23)
Yes.

David J Bauman (27:23)
And I like how this choice of yours fits very well with your book and the the title and overall theme of the book as well. So tell us about the poem you chose.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (27:32)
Sure. So I chose Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Lamone. I love this poem. I've used

David J Bauman (27:37)
Yes.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (27:39)
it in workshops for older adults that that I teach. And there's a poem in my book that is after this poem, actually. so I think it's beautiful. I think the way that Ada Lamone captures the ordinary and every day, but then there's always seems to be like this broader, like big

idea or big theme that you can pair up with it, whether it's intentional or not, is just beautiful. And the the way she uses specificity, and detail. it just adds I think this layer of like luxuriousness, I think, in this this poem. And I think I read something about this poem,

I think if I'm getting it correct, she had been out like on a walk and then she was in her kitchen and she just wrote this because it was one of those poems that, I f I consider a gift when they happen, where they just come,

David J Bauman (28:29)
Mm-hmm.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (28:30)
right? You just you just stand or sit somewhere and you just write it and it's there and it's just like I often in times 'cause it's very few and far between for me that this happens, I just kinda take a pause and just say, Thank you. Like whoever sent this to me, thank you. Right? And

David J Bauman (28:42)
Mm. Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (28:45)
I just I love it. I love this poem, so I'm glad that I get to read it. All right,

David J Bauman (28:48)
Alright, you go right ahead.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (28:50)
okay. Instructions on not giving up by Ada Limon More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out of the crab apple tree, more than the neighbors almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving their cotton candy colored blossoms to the slate sky of spring rains.

It's the greening of the trees that really gets to me. When all the shock of white and taffy, the words the world's baubles and trinkets, leave the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath, the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin growing over whatever winter did to us, a return to the strange idea of continuous living despite the mess of us, the hurt, the

The empty Fine then, I'll take it, the trees seemed to say, a new slick leaf unfurling like a fist to an open palm. I'll take it all.

David J Bauman (29:55)
The idea that this was written before the pandemic astonishes me really. Doesn't it? Because this

Dawn Leas (she/her) (30:00)
I know. Yeah.

David J Bauman (30:05)
I mean this was from The Carrying, her book by Milkweed Editions in 2018.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (30:10)
Mm-hmm.

David J Bauman (30:11)
and I think in 2017 it was published published in Poem a Day. Yeah. Yeah. And so

Dawn Leas (she/her) (30:15)
It was, yeah, on post dot org. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

David J Bauman (30:18)
now seeing this, I mean talk about poems.

carrying extra things that maybe weren't even in them or weren't maybe even intended. I think

Dawn Leas (she/her) (30:26)
Right.

David J Bauman (30:27)
looking at this post-pandemic, that whole where is that line? It's the patient plotting a green skin growing what

Dawn Leas (she/her) (30:33)
Yes.

David J Bauman (30:34)
over whatever winter did to us and a ri

Dawn Leas (she/her) (30:36)
Yes.

David J Bauman (30:37)
a return to the strange idea of continuous living,

Dawn Leas (she/her) (30:40)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

David J Bauman (30:42)
despite the mess of us.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (30:44)
Yes. Yeah. It really does.

David J Bauman (30:45)
It applies to so many damn things in the last in the last six years.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (30:51)
Yeah, it really has. Yeah, it's a beautiful poem.

David J Bauman (30:54)
And she has such a way with music as well in a in a in

Dawn Leas (she/her) (30:57)
Mm-hmm.

David J Bauman (30:58)
a what seems like a prose poem or a free verse poem because she's just got tons of stuff that this make me envious. Like the fuchsia funnels, the cotton

Dawn Leas (she/her) (31:07)
Mm-hmm.

David J Bauman (31:07)
candy colored blossoms, slate sky of spring rains, the greening of the trees that really gets to me. I mean, there's like

Dawn Leas (she/her) (31:15)
Yes.

David J Bauman (31:16)
I mean obviously it's not sing songgy in that sort of but

But wow, the internal music of it in such a small package. She's

Dawn Leas (she/her) (31:23)
Yes. Right. Yeah, with a little

bit like the longer lines, the one stanza format. I think it would read differently if they were shorter, if they were couplets or tercets or something like that, right? that it's almost like this little package trying to contain and almost like the energy is like vibrating the edges, like the the margins of of the poem, I think. So and that la that last line, I'll take it all.

Right.

David J Bauman (31:50)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (31:50)
Yeah. Fine, I'll take it all. Why not? Yeah.

David J Bauman (31:52)
Yeah

the tree seems to say a new slick leaf unfurling like

Dawn Leas (she/her) (31:57)
Mm-hmm.

David J Bauman (31:58)
a fist to an open palm.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (32:00)
Yeah, which is a beautiful image. I I just it's that's one of my favorite images in the poem.

David J Bauman (32:06)
I got to see her read at and I'm gonna say it wrong, forgive me,

Dawn Leas (she/her) (32:09)
Okay.

David J Bauman (32:11)
'cause I know I said it wrong when I was there. Ca Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (32:16)
Okay.

David J Bauman (32:17)
she was there as part of her project with the You Are Here, I think. and it's a beautiful cover too with the

Dawn Leas (she/her) (32:22)
Yes. Which I just bought. I just bought that book. I it does. Yeah, yeah.

David J Bauman (32:29)
and I made sure we got that at the library.

But I also bought a copy for myself when I was there. and

Dawn Leas (she/her) (32:34)
Yeah.

David J Bauman (32:35)
it's just wonderful to hear her read in in person too. And she just has this I I think she had a situation where something happened to the outfit that she was going to wear, and so she was wearing something different. And she talked about being being flustered and and upset, but she didn't look or sound the least bit that. She just

Dawn Leas (she/her) (32:52)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

David J Bauman (32:56)
seems very calm and grounded.

And not in any sort of I don't know, not in any sort of arrogant way. She's just

Dawn Leas (she/her) (33:05)
Yes.

David J Bauman (33:06)
just like peacefully connected to wherever it is she's walking and I just

Dawn Leas (she/her) (33:10)
Mm-hmm.

David J Bauman (33:10)
I admire her so much.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (33:12)
Yeah. I've heard somebody else describe that recent describe like they were at a workshop that she was teaching and with a bunch of other people and that's what they s they said like whenever she spoke, it was just like this groundedness and I love hearing that about writers or artists that I admire, right? Not not just for the work but just for how they seem like from the outside. 'Cause like it's always like we all like who knows, right? It's you're

David J Bauman (33:36)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (33:36)
on public facing.

But to then hear somebody who's had like an encounter or knows the person and be like, yeah, th this is just you know how they are. And I love I love hearing that about people. So I I just I really I love her work and I whenever somebody's like, you know, give me a po you know, somebody recommend and she's always on my list. Always, yeah, on my recommend recommendation

David J Bauman (33:58)
Yeah, yeah. I think

Dawn Leas (she/her) (34:01)
list.

David J Bauman (34:01)
I think not the first poem that struck me of hers, but but before those books there was a a poem I heard her read, maybe it was in the New Yorker poetry podcast, I'm not sure, or Poetry Off the Shelf, where she read her poem Wonder Woman, if you've read that.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (34:15)
Okay. I'm not I have not

I have not read that. I'm gonna I'm gonna have to go Google that. Okay, thank you.

David J Bauman (34:18)
That's a homework for assignment for everyone that's

that's that's listening. Look up her poem Wonder Woman and read that

Dawn Leas (she/her) (34:25)
Okay.

David J Bauman (34:25)
and you can thank me later. wonder

Dawn Leas (she/her) (34:27)
Thank you.

David J Bauman (34:29)
Wonderful poem. But I I love that you said that too, because the the opposite I think happens in my head and I think how do people perceive this guy who's like angrily arguing with somebody online right now? Shit, I fell for that trap again. And

Dawn Leas (she/her) (34:45)
Yeah.

David J Bauman (34:45)
And yet he wrote this poem. And there was there's a poem

Dawn Leas (she/her) (34:47)
I know. I know.

David J Bauman (34:50)
that somebody shared today, because Wendell Berry Wendell Berry just recently passed.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (34:54)
I know so sad.

David J Bauman (34:57)
Yeah. And he someone shared his poem basically where he's apologizing if I'm not if I wasn't the person in my poems, you know, if I was this angry,

Dawn Leas (she/her) (35:05)
Mm-hmm.

David J Bauman (35:07)
frustrated man. And I'm I'm

I'm totally destroying the poem rather than quoting it because I can't remember, but it just struck me as like, my god, that's how I feel. There's a young lady who came into the library recently. and she's a teenager and she's just the type of person who just says what she's thinking and

Dawn Leas (she/her) (35:23)
Mm-hmm.

David J Bauman (35:24)
no filter and that can be refreshing, that can be challenging.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (35:28)
Right.

David J Bauman (35:28)
But she said, You're a poet?

She said, I wouldn't have thought that. I thought poets were like people who were really at peace with themselves in the universe.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (35:38)
my gosh.

David J Bauman (35:41)
And I'm like, well, sometimes we're

Dawn Leas (she/her) (35:44)
Yeah.

David J Bauman (35:44)
people who are really in conflict with ourselves in the universe.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (35:47)
Exactly.

David J Bauman (35:48)
Maybe stretching toward peace and maybe having

Dawn Leas (she/her) (35:50)
Mm.

David J Bauman (35:51)
a I said, I'd like to view myself as that, you know, calm cowboy, with the

hero stance or whatever, but that's not that's not me. At all.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (35:59)
Right. And that's okay. That's okay.

Mm.

David J Bauman (36:07)
so what else would And I hate asking

Dawn Leas (she/her) (36:10)
Yeah, so I

David J Bauman (36:11)
that because I don't want to put any pressure like, what are you doing next as if what you have done so far is not amazing. That's not at all how I mean it.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (36:19)
Right. I think, you know, the book came out in November of twenty twenty five and so I have like leading up to it it was a lot of editing and revising and then coming after it it was it's been, you know, doing some readings and workshops and things like that and I I have not been writing a lot. I have this idea for a new chap book. I don't want to like s say it 'cause I I'm still

David J Bauman (36:40)
Yeah. Don't want to curse it.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (36:42)
I'm still trying to, you know, formulate the but that this is something that's interesting to me 'cause I'm I'm coming it came to me as like an overarching theme. So it wasn't like, I started writing this poem, I'm like, I could no, it's like this overarching theme that I want to write the entire chap book around. I need to make the time, I need to carve the time out of my schedule to

take a couple of days away somewhere and that's that's my that's my dream, right? I'm gonna like take myself out of my real world for a couple of days, so I can start this project and see where it's going to go. And I've written a couple of essays, like very short, like mic micro, flash, so I'm trying to get those placed in a hopefully put somewhere we'll take it. Someone will say yes, you know, the the unending

David J Bauman (37:28)
And and I find it so

hard to to to get those definitions too. Is this Flash? Is this micro or is this a prose poem? What is this? And and I I

Dawn Leas (she/her) (37:34)
Yeah. Exactly. How are we going to define it? Yeah.

David J Bauman (37:38)
love I love those publications, those of you out there who who don't mind if if if I haven't figured out what category to put it in. Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (37:45)
Somewhere. Somewhere. Somewhere in in between those lines, right? And

so I'm hoping to work on that chat book. I started a novel literally in two thousand and nine that I keep picking up and putting back and picking up and I've haven't picked it back up again, but I have fiction writer friends who are drawing me in to be like, You but you're gonna come back to this and you're gonna work on it. So

David J Bauman (38:08)
You have Barb

Taylor whispering in your ear? that's great.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (38:09)
I do. One she is one of them. She is one Julie Sidoni and Lauren Stahl. So

yeah, so we'll see. We'll see where I take that, you know. But I I'm a poet at heart. I know that. Like and I'm okay with that. I really am. But I

David J Bauman (38:25)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (38:25)
it's I find it also it's interesting to write in other genres, right? Like you

David J Bauman (38:29)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (38:29)
it's not like you can only write in one genre. So to to explore, like I'm always wanting to learn more about craft and and become a better writer and I think

you know, kind of going out into the uncomfortable zones of other genres is a good place to do that. So, but I used to write like a lot of flash fiction when I was a kid. Like that's really what I started writing. And so, you know, I've always had a love for fiction and this

the story, this character just it it won't move on to it

David J Bauman (39:03)
Not letting you go.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (39:04)
has not let me go to move on to somebody else where I I really truly believe creative ideas do that. So I'm like,

David J Bauman (39:09)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (39:09)
well if it's stuck around for, what, sixteen years or whatever, maybe I better maybe I

David J Bauman (39:13)
Then it's serious. Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (39:14)
better give it some attention. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see what this year brings. Yeah. Thank you. As always.

David J Bauman (39:18)
Well good luck with that. It's delightful talking to you, even though we'll get

to see each other in the shall we say real world? What does that even mean anymore? I don't know.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (39:26)
Exactly. I know. I know.

not what it used to, that's for sure. Yes. Yeah.

David J Bauman (39:32)
but we'll see you at the library. We'll definitely see you at the library. Okay, wonderful.

And tell tell people we'll put links to it, but tell people about your website and if you're doing are you doing any workshops anyone can sign up for any time soon.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (39:44)
Sure, yeah.

So my website is thehammockwriter dot com I do one-to-one coaching and I do writing groups. I will be doing a series of online workshops starting at the end of September and I co-lead a writing retreat at the beach. So if you love the

David J Bauman (40:00)
Yeah.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (40:00)
ocean, I co-lead that with a wonderful nonfiction writer named Vicky Make and that is October 9th through the eleventh.

at in Ocean Grove, New Jersey. So you can find information about that on my website. Yeah. Yeah.

David J Bauman (40:13)
Wonderful.

it's a delight, as always, talking to you, Dawn Thank you so much for being here. You you take care. Bye-bye.

Dawn Leas (she/her) (40:16)
Always David. Yeah, I love talking to you. You're welcome. Thanks. You too. Bye bye.

David J Bauman (40:24)
You've been listening to In Three Poems. We've been reading with and talking with Don Lees about her book The Sin of Being Okay, published by Kinsman Quarterly in 2025. We also read Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Lamone, published in her book The Carrying by Milkweed Editions in 2018. And our thanks to Ada Lamone and Milkweed Editions for allowing us to read it on the podcast.

Thanks also to the love of my life, Brian P. Kelly, for composing and performing our theme music. I'm David J. Bauman, and this has been Season 2, Episode 10, our 24th episode overall of In Three Poems. I can't thank you enough for listening.